


The Years of Carrying On

by GwenTheTribble



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Character Study, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 03:22:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5612080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GwenTheTribble/pseuds/GwenTheTribble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Rey was a girl, she pretended that the General was her mother, and that one day she would come back for her, and make her a resistance pilot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Years of Carrying On

In the years when girls are without families and wives are without husbands and boys are without peace, they carry on. 

 

Girls scavenge ships and get cheated by merchants.  Girls work with thieves, are raised by them.  The ship left.  Rey waited.  This was a girl who had no father, but had several mothers.  Or at least, she did. 

The thieves and tricksters raised her, and the desert scoured away their imparted cruelty.  This is a girl, left in the desert.  This is a girl who is still kind, still bright and kind. 

When BB-8 is captured, she ran to save a droid.  She gave him directions, but let him stay.  Rey is the sand under her feet.  Scorching, but not impenetrable.  This is a girl who has been without kin.  Who has spent most of her life alone.  She loves quickly, and deeply, and well. 

 

This is a girl who is small. 

Gibola roared a laugh and stole her portions.  The Ensler brothers leered at her when she made her way into the camp.  Rey goes hungry for a few days, spent more hours in the wreckage.  At the end of the week she had enough for a Bo stick.  The traders and thieves she lived with learned to leave her well enough alone.

Rey spent her childhood in the wreckage.  Rey spent her girlhood scratching lines into a wall.  It marked how long someone had not loved her enough to stay.  She didn’t think of it that way. 

 

Tales of the First Order came, and of the bravery of General Leia soon after.  The smuggler Han Solo was already spoken of. 

When Rey was a girl, she pretended that the General was her mother, and that one day she would come back for her, and make her a resistance pilot. 

This is a girl who kept faith, who kept steady.  Who is quick to loyalty and faster to compassion. 

 

 

Leia, who was once a princess but thinks General suits her better.  She loved a man who was a war hero, but smuggler suited him better.  Kylo Ren was a war lord, but she thought that Ben Solo suited him better.  She was probably right. 

But this is a woman who has always had things taken from her.  This is a woman who is always left with only the mission.

Leia dreamt of her mother at night, her other mother slept in her own bedchambers several doors down.  She was beautiful, and sad, and told her that she must never surrender to those who would control her. 

When her mother didn’t come back that night, or the next, or ever, Leia learnt not to chase after ghosts.  Her mission was for the living.  

This was a girl who wasn’t yet woman enough for braids.  Her mother called her Lelila, and her mother once visited her in a dream.  There was sorrow, of course.  But this was a girl attending to her studies, and sneaking over walls to parties.  She didn’t yet know who she would be.  Though she did know who she wanted to be. 

When her mother’s sister betrayed them to Darth Vader, she learned that family didn’t mean safe.  When her mother refused to harm her sister, she learned that it didn’t matter. 

Rebellion was in her blood.  Trees were giants, and they reminded her of her family.  Their shadows were large, but she wasn’t standing in them. 

 

Leia was not soft.  Leia was dutiful.  Han was a scoundrel.  Han was dangerous.  Han was a good man. 

Han did not leave Leia in the dead of night.  He kissed her good bye, and told her that they’d see each other again.  Chewbacca hugged her, and they left.  Leia went back inside, and got dressed.  She had things to do.  The First Order was destroying more families than just her own. 

Her son was still good.  Her husband was still a scoundrel.  She still has a mission.

 

Wars don’t end.  They come in waves, and crash on the shores of supposed happy endings. 


End file.
